Venezuelan Assembly Leader: ‘Zombie’ U.S. Dollar ‘Does Not Exist’

One of the leading figures in Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela has claimed that the U.S. dollar “does not exist” and has no real financial worth.

Former foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez, who is now head of the fraudulent lawmaking body known as the “national constituent assembly,” made the comments during a tirade against President Donald Trump and the United States over the recent decision to ban citizens from dealing in Venezuela’s new national cryptocurrency.

“Donald Trump intends to prevent the impossible because Venezuela has already entered the future with the Petro, a cryptocurrency that will face an international financial struggle as opposed to the ghost called the dollar that is only sustained thanks to the warmongering machinery of the United States,” Rodriguez said.

She went on to claim that the dollar was a time bomb and built on financial speculation rather than real wealth.

“Venezuela has already entered the new international financial order, the dollar does not exist, it has no real financial basis, it is speculative, and it represents the financial crisis of world capitalism,” she said.

“The Petro was born and has stamped on it the galloping sword of [Venezuelan founding father Simón] Bolívar and reminds the dollar that it does not exist, it is a zombie … The Petro is a real crypto, backed by oil, gold, and diamond, and was born to guarantee the future of hope for our people,” she continued.

Rodriguez’s claims are all the more extraordinary given Venezuela’s current economic predicament in which hyperinflation and economic decline have rendered its bolivar currency practically worthless and led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that has left millions starving and without necessary living resources.

Some cryptoanalysts argue that the “petro,” launched by the Maduro regime last month in a bid to mortgage the country’s extensive oil reserves, is worthless and has failed to generate any considerable revenue to help ease the government’s enormous debt burden.

Members of the ruling socialist regime have built a reputation of making propagandistic claims that have no basis in reality. For example, Maduro himself has repeatedly blamed the country’s ongoing crisis on an “economic war” led by the U.S. and other international powers.

In 2016, Maduro was forced to replace his vice president of the economy after just a month in office after he refused to acknowledge the existence of inflation that is now running close to 6000 percent.

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